


Origins

by quentintarrantino



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Blood, Cannibalism, M/M, Murder, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 03:30:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quentintarrantino/pseuds/quentintarrantino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The past is bound to repeat itself one way or another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hannibal

i.

You are twenty.

You’re studying to become a surgeon, you hold the scalpel in your hand for the first time and break the skin of the cadaver. _You’re a natural._ The professor encourages.

You smile.

 

ii.

Your accent is strong.

Your dorm mates mock you behind your back. They say you mangle your words and suck the music out of them.

At night you count their breaths like others count sheep. There will be time for revenge.

You could wait a lifetime.

 

iii.

There’s a job opening down the street at a butcher’s shop. You pull the flier from the board and wander into town.

 _What’s your name boy?_ The fat man in charge asks him.

 _Hannibal._ You reply.

_Can you manage a knife?_

You nod. You’re a natural.

 

iv.

You learn how to cut and hack, the way to harvest meat from the never ending stacks of bodies rotting away in the giant freezers. Sometimes when everyone has gone home and it’s just you, you sit inside of one and watch the bodies swing from the meat hooks.

The cold clears your head. The smell of death fills it with ideas. A pig’s skin is no tougher than a humans, you tell yourself.

 

v.

Her name is Louisa. She is your lab partner for one of your classes. She tells you one day she wants to be a mortician. Her eyes are brown and sharp, but hold a gentleness that you do not like.

She has no friends, rarely leaves her room. She will not be missed.

 

vi.

You are more nervous than you’ve ever been in your life. Your white button down shirt is now red as you look into Louisa’s soft brown eyes. She looks so different with a knife sticking out of her chest.

You followed her, you were so patient and you planned this for months. No one will notice her absence, she said she was going to go to Maine for spring break. Louisa is crying and you grab her face, you want her to see you, to know that you did this to her. You want the satisfaction of seeing her fear and betrayal.

She does not know you, the fear in her eyes is as generic and impersonal as can be. You wait for her to place your face but she does not, you’re forgetabble. In a childish fit you stab her three more times, she is dead long before then and you’ve ruined several of her internal organs.

With a heaving chest you peel off your shirt and let it crumple onto the asphault, only the headlights of her car on this abandoned road will light the path you’ve chosen.

The people at the deli praise this new steak. You tell the fat owner that you visited home. Grass-fed cattle give the most tender meat you say. He believes you and gives you a few extra dollars that week as thanks.

Louisa tastes bitter in his mouth. She did not remember him.

 

vii.

You are twenty-five.

The bar you are sitting in is smoky and crowded. You sip your expensive wine and survey. The ones who drink alone are the easiest to track, they are sad and drunk and put up little fight. You don’t normally select meals like this but today is your birthday and this is a gift to yourself.

There is a woman across the way from you, her eyes are blue and unclouded. She is a fox in a herd of cattle.

She meets your eyes and you feel something curl in your stomach that is unpleasant. She looks at you and she knows.

You leave the bar and do not return.

 

viii.

Will Graham’s eyes are soft and brown. He is a lamb crying for his mother while the wolves circle. He shoots Garrett Jacob Hobbes but he takes no pleasure from it as you would.

Will Graham cries like Louisa.

You watch him, he sees just as you do but he does not see you. You do not like this, you kill a pretty girl just for him in hopes he’ll catch on.

You are forgettable. Immature hurt pricks the surface, uncovering memories of days you do not want to remember.

Will Graham smiles at you, his eyes are warm and brown and gentle, but you like it. You cook for him and he compliments you, you smile back.

 

ix.

 _Come down from there Abigail_   You order. Abigail Hobbes looks afraid but you both know this is not the case. She is the fox, the fear does not reach her eyes. While Will Graham cries over his sins she revels in them, you admire this.

 _I’m a monster_ she tells you, there are tears in her eyes. You feel responsible, you recall your first night on that abandoned road. The only sounds were your first victims stereo playing a song you have long since forgotten.

 _Will and I will protect you_ you reply. She embraces you, but all you see is the coy woman in the bar watching you through the cloud of smoke.

Abigail Hobbes looks the most beautiful with blood splattered on her pale face you decide.

 

x.

 _You’re the Chesapeak Ripper_ Will Graham tells you during one of your sessions. You straighten your back and look down at your hands. The hands of the butcher boy.

You are sad that you must kill him, but he knows too much. The letter opener is on your desk and you grab it, muscles tense and ready for a struggle that never comes. Will Graham does not move as you walk towards him with the small blade at ready.

You look into his eyes and you see Louisa’s face. You see her as she should have been. Waves of brown overwhelm you, Will Graham doesn’t run even as you ready to strike. He is a lamb who has accepted his fate. He closes his eyes but you see the expression on his face.

Familiarity.

His brain would’ve made a lovely stew, you think. His lips feel lovely on yours.

Will Graham sighs into your mouth, his eyes swallow you whole and you like it.


	2. Will

i.

You are nine and your mother is pregnant.

Her belly swells each passing month and you wonder at it, she tells you that your new sister is inside and he will be coming to meet you soon. You are excited, you sit inside her nursery sometimes and think about how nice it will be to have someone to look out for.

 

ii.

The teachers at school are concerned about you, you don’t play with the other children.

A boy in your class shoves you into the dirt and you fly into a rage, you scream and kick him until the recess supervisor pulls you off of him and by then he’s got a cracked rib. The psychiatrist says you are a very sick little boy. _But we can make you better_ he assures.

You now take three pills before you go to bed and five when you wake up and you don’t feel a single thing.

 

iii.

Your mother wakes up in the middle of the night crying, you aren’t supposed to hear her but you do. She is in pain, she says that your little sister is trying to come out. You don’t think it’s a good thing by the way she tells your father that.

They don’t have time to take you anywhere, you have to sit in the back with the overnight bag clutched to your chest as your wide eyes take in you mother’s hunched up figure.

You remember learning in school that pregnancy lasts nine months, you have been keeping count of how long your sisters been growing. Seven months is not enough, you want to tell her to be patient and wait but you think she would not listen.

 

iv.

Your grandmother sews, you love watching her because it calms you. The way one thread can decorate the plain white of the cloth and make it into something beautiful. _There are no accidents_ she tells you as you sit across the table. _If you mess up you create something new and equally as beautiful._ You wonder if maybe somewhere along the way you got messed up, and maybe you still have the potential to be beautiful.

 _This is my design_ you tell her, showing your handiwork. She loves it so much it gets framed and hung in the kitchen.

 

v.

Your little sister enters this world pale and still. She does not cry, she does not move.

This is the first time you see a corpse, the image of the nameless baby that gets buried quietly in a cemetary is one you will always carry with you. Her little fingers feel cold to the touch and give you nightmares that only lead to the psychiatrist giving you more pills.

 

vi.

You are twenty-six and the bottle of sleeping pills you took are taking effect.

You feel more than you should, no matter how many medications you’re prescribed. It’s like a choking vine that won’t let you breathe and only when you’re asleep do you get the peace you desire.

The peace you deserve.

You’re nodding off in your bathtub, one of your dogs in your lap licking your face and whining slighty. You’re thinking about the messy piece of needlework in your grandmother’s kitchen. There are no accidents, even when its seemingly destroyed there is still hope for redemption.

You end up vomiting all over your bathroom floor and when you awake you’re fine except for a minor head injury from passing out and hitting your head on the toilet as you tried to climb out and dial 911.

There are no accidents.

 

vii.

The first time you shake hands with Hannibal Lecter you are violently reminded of your little sister.

His skin is frigid, his hands are white, and his facial expression is uncomfortable. He is looking at you the way no one else has ever looked at you, not with polite stares but an intrigued gaze. Hannibal Lecter watches. You speak to him frequently, he understands and doesn’t give you pills to ingest.

In a few months’ time you even call him your friend.

 

iix.

The woods are cold, you do not remember walking outside, you’re losing time again.

Garrett Jacob Hobbes is there, his bullet wounds ooze black goo in place of blood and he has a blade in his hands. You know he isn’t real but the terror that seizes you is the most primal fear you’ve ever known. You cannot move and you cannot scream.

He creeps closer and pushes you into the ground, towering above you like the bully from gradeschool.

You awake in a cold sweat to find Hannibal watching you, you accidentally fell asleep in his office during a session.  _I’m sorry_ you tell him. He waves your apologies away and instead invites you to stay for dinner.

The pork tastes strange.

 

ix.

You are twenty-one. While driving home for christmas from college you hit an animal. Your car skids several hundred feet and flips once.

You pull yourself out and stumblr blindly through heavy flakes of snow you see a wounded stag take its last few breaths before it dies. The antlers are beautiful and you keep your hands tangled in its fur until the towtruck arrives to help you with your car.

It must be a sin to thoughtlessly murder such a magnificient creature, you think.

You tell this story to Abigail Hobbes many years down the road.

 

x.

Hannibal Lecter’s bed is warm and soft, you awake early in the morning and dress yourself before driving back to his office. The door is unlocked.

The letter opener is still laying where he dropped it, you pick it up and place it back on his desk, aligning it so it is parallel with all the other items. _There are no accidents_ you tell yourself as you recall the look in Hannibal’s eyes as he decided whether to kill you or kiss you.

As you leave you catch your reflection in the mirror of the waiting room, there is dried blood on your neck from where you were bitten last night. The outline of teeth bruising your skin and leaving angry red pinpricks like thread winding and weaving through white cloth. You wonder if there’s beauty even in a sin like this.


End file.
